30歲的GM: Sam Presti

SEATTLE (AP) — Sam Presti owes becoming the youngest general manager in the NBA to a homesick teammate at Emerson College.

Eight years ago, Presti, captain of the basketball team at Boston’s renowned school for communication and the arts, talked the discouraged player out of quitting and going home to Colorado.

The teammate’s father, the superintendent of schools in Aspen, was so appreciative that he invited Presti to coach at a summer basketball camp that happened to be run by R.C. Buford, the general manager of the San Antonio Spurs.

“Fortunately, I somehow endeared myself to them,” Presti, now 30, said Thursday of Buford and the Spurs, who entered Thursday four wins from a fourth NBA title since 1999.

很特別的是，Presti屬於非科班出身，在馬刺從實習生作起，在7年內成為助理GM。這固然代表他很幸運，更代表他很努力、很聰明。

By the next summer, Buford had hired Presti as a $250-per-month intern. Seven years later, after establishing himself as a scouting guru and salary cap wizard, San Antonio’s former assistant GM is in Seattle.

“Once he was in San Antonio for a month, I think we realized that it was going to be important that we not let him leave,” a “crushed” Buford said Thursday from the NBA finals. “Now who knew that seven years later he’d still be with us and continue to grow and turn into one of the outstanding front office talents that I’ve ever seen, especially when you consider the age.”

Presti is currently the league’s youngest GM — but not the youngest in NBA history. A 28-year-old Jerry Colangelo became GM of the expansion Phoenix Suns in 1968.